


Prodigal

by chicken_neck



Series: Blue Lights on the Runway [1]
Category: Casson Family - Hilary McKay
Genre: Bisexual Character, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, M/M, Teens, the boys are approx 16 I guess, two of em!!!!, unrealistically gentle teens, unrealistically soft boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 18:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14117976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicken_neck/pseuds/chicken_neck
Summary: Tom comes back. It takes a few years, but Tom comes back.





	Prodigal

**Author's Note:**

> I reread Saffy's Angel and Indigo's Star recently and you know what. I'm gay now, so they're gay now. These are characters that really grow up with you
> 
>  
> 
> Not canon compliant to any book after Permanent Rose because it has been .... a long damn time since I've read any of those.  
> Also I hear Rose and Tom get together and imo that is gross.

“Indigo is in love with Tom,” said Rose. 

“Yes, darling,” said Eve, who was poking at the tins from yesterday's Indian takeaway, in the vague hope that they might contain dinner for this evening as well, “we all love Tom very much. When is his flight landing?”

“In love,” Rose insisted, “with kissing.”

“Kissing doesn't have to mean in love,” said Saffy, wandering over to join Rose at the window, “oh.”

Indigo and Tom were leaning against the garden fence, kissing. The taxi driver was very politely ignoring this as she unloaded Tom's luggage from her cab and piled it around them. 

“I think,” said Rose, “for Indigo, it probably does.” 

 

Bill Casson was, of course, completely fine with having a gay son. He was an Artist. He moved in Bohemian circles where such things were never frowned upon, and wasn't it jolly good that the rest of the world was finally catching up. In fact, he almost had an encounter of his own one time in Venice, and he remembered that time very warmly.  
He explained all but the last of these things to Eve and Rose two days after Tom came back.

Rose chewed the end of a paintbrush, with a deep furrow in her brow, “But why did you come back from London if everything's fine? You stay in London when everything's fine.”

Bill bristled at this, “I'm perfectly capable of coming home from London when things are fine, Rose.” 

“You never came home when Caddy got a new boyfriend.”

“Well I'd be coming home twice a week if I-”

“Or when Saffy started going out with Short Charlie, or Mads the Mad, or Marcus With Hardly Any Piercings.”

“it would be very patriarchal actually you see-” 

“ _And_ you didn't come home when I went out to the pier with Gregory with the Vegan Mums.”

“You weren't in love with Gregory,” said Eve diplomatically.

“No,” said Rose, “but he did buy me chips.”

“He did buy you chips,” said Eve, warmly, “and Clara - one of the mums, dear - did such a wonderful job fixing the upstairs sink. It doesn't drip at all any more.”

“My _point_ is,” said Bill, “that it's important that Indigo _knows_ that everything is fine with me.”

Rose’s brow uncreased as her face went blank with astonishment. Bill looked at Eve in askance and found she was wearing the same expression. 

“I'm his father and he needs to know I'll stand by him in this and in everything else,” said Bill in what he thought was a warm and fatherly voice.

His wife and daughter continued to stare at him as if he had grown a second head. 

“I’m not sure that he does, darling,” said Eve faintly, “we rather thought it was presumed.”

Bill Casson was delighted to have a gay son, and found himself slightly disappointed at the lack of support this got him.

 

“Indigo isn't gay anyway,” said Rose, skipping along the pavement beside her father, “he went out with Sarah that time, and they didn't break up because he was gay it was just that she was teaching him how to kiss properly and once they figured it out they realised they didn't want to do it anymore.”

“Boys can kiss girls when they're teenagers and only realise that they're gay afterwards,” said Bill hesitantly, treading cautiously in these new and potentially treacherous waters.

“Not Indigo. Indigo only kisses people he means to kiss.”

“More power to Indigo.”

“Tom is gay, which is nice because if he liked girls as well as boys, he'd have to choose between Indigo and me and his heart would break in half.”

Bill glanced briefly at his 12 year old daughter and decided not to respond to that one. 

“I'll get older soon!” She said, sensing his doubt anyway, “and I suppose we wouldn't really break his heart. Caddy broke Patrick’s heart. And Derek and Andrew's hearts, as well. But that's because she kept forgetting to dump them. She didn't break her own heart or Michael's so if Indigo and I were to both love Tom it-.” 

Bill was beginning to get frustrated, as he usually did at some point during conversations with his youngest child, "where are we going anyway? You said it was close by. If I'd known the walk would be this long I'd have brought the car.”

Rose looked insulted, “you can't take the car to school.”

Bill took a deep breath and marvelled at what a patient man he was, that a lesser father would certainly have shouted at this point. “We already passed the school, twice, Rosie. Are Indigo and Tom at the school?”

At, on, some details weren't important. “Yes,” Rose sighed, “but we were having such a nice chat.”

They began walking back towards the primary school, where Indigo and Tom would almost definitely no longer be, thanks to Rose's warning text and 40 minutes head start.

“ _Anyway_ , my point is you should stop telling people in London about how much you support your gay son, because Indigo is bi,” she grinned for a moment and skipped forward so she could see her father's reaction as she added, “like me!”

 

Indigo and Tom were, in fact, two miles east of, and nearly two hundred feet above the school. 

The roof of the new shopping centre was now the highest point in town. Indigo had acquired the keys in a manner which was, for the most part, legal. 

The roof's plasticky, modern surface was nothing like the gravel of the school roof. It was ten times higher, for one thing. No little plants tried to grow, even in the gutters here. The unbroken, flat whiteness made Indigo think of arctic ice. A big flat lid over the whole town, keeping everything underneath it frozen in place. The faint, busy noise of the shoppers below belonged in another dimension entirely. No one could reach them here, as the sun went down. 

“I can’t remember,” Tom said, “will the stars be different here? From the ones in America?”

“They shouldn’t be,” said Indigo, brushing his fingers gently through Tom’s hair, “we’re the same hemisphere. Latitude might do something though.”

They’d been running around all day, avoiding Bill Casson more for the adrenaline rush than any real desire to not to see the man (though Tom had a secretly real desire no to see the man. Between Rose’s stories and the other Cassons’ occasional comments, he seemed the ‘what are your intentions with my son’ type), so it was nice to lie down here, in a forgotten place on top of everything.

“Latitude, that’s what I was talking about,” Tom blustered. “Did I tell you about how clear the stars were when I went hiking in the Rockies?” he asked, tucking his face close to Indigo’s neck. “They’re even better than at Yellowstone. You’re so high up that the air doesn’t get in the way.”

Tom had told the story a few times already. Indigo could tell by how perilous the hike was, how death-defying Tom’s exploits had been, and how impressed everyone had been by him. And anyway, Indigo had heard the original version a few months ago. That was the only version which included the part where Tom saw a baby bird take its first flight, and it made him cry.

“...and the park ranger said she’d only seen professionals make the jump before. She said she would recommend me for a mountain rescue team but I’m not into the lifestyle.” Tom finished, gesturing dramatically with the arm not pillowing Indigo's head. 

Indigo didn't say anything for a moment, and Tom's gesture wilted until his arm was curled against Tom's chest again. His tall tales were a flitting reminder that they'd have to rejoin the world at some point, be individual people in seperate bodies, living two different lives. It was a worry, and Indigo stored it away for a better time. 

“What kind of lifestyle are you into, then, jump boy extraordinaire?” he asked.

“Well,” Tom grinned, “the stargazing with Indigo Casson lifestyle seems pretty great right now.”

“Yeah?” said Indigo, amused, “are there star sighting opportunities that great in my neck?” he could feel the laughter bubble up in Tom's throat. Tom opened his eyes and Indigo could feel that too, the moth’s kiss of eyelashes brushing against his throat. Every place where they were touching felt warmer, softer, more real.

Tom closed his eyes again as he said, soft as he’s said anything, “better than the Rockies, if you can even imagine.”

**Author's Note:**

> Listen. Indigo Casson is not straight. He is not straight and he was in love with Tom Levin and this truth trumps any ""'canon'"". 
> 
> Reviews appreciated! 
> 
> Catch me on tumblr @spindletrees


End file.
